Xavier’s to open research facility for other institutions’ faculty

Kolkata, May 29 (IANS) St. Xavier’s College of Kolkata has decided to open up its central research facility for researchers and faculty of other institutions and start a faculty development programme for teachers of other colleges and universities, a top official said here on Tuesday.

The college will also open a counselling cell for parents, which will be an extension of similar facilities now provided to students who require it regularly, college principal Reverend Father Dominic Savio told mediapersons.

The college is also coming up with an E-attendance system, own faculty development programme and other expansions related to teaching, learning, research and consultancy, said Savio.

“Such academic expansion will create new goals and drive the college in new directions and will attract talents that otherwise tend to migrate out of state,” he said.

Teachers will be provided Tabs through which they will manage attendance, communicate with students and share content.

“Our college is introducing a mobile application for attendance management of students in a secure, paperless environment by making use of the e-resources of the college,” he said.

On the faculty development programme, he said: “This will be a collaboration between the college and the St. Xavier’s University. A teacher-learning research centre is also being planned.”

As per the recommendations of the University Grants Commission, the college has decided to extend the choice-based credit system (CBCS) to the Science and Arts Department from the current academic year.

The system was introduced in the Commerce and Business Administration Department last year.

“Advantage of CBCS is that if a student wants to shift to St. Xavier’s Mumbai or somewhere else, he can easily do it from the next semester,” he added.

The college will start post-graduate courses in English, Political Science or International Education in its old campus on the city’s Park Street and Bengali in the new facility at Raghavpur in South 24 Parganas district where the medium of instruction is Bengali.

Over the next two years, the college will also have Ph.D programmes in almost all subjects.

“The fees in the new campus in the rural area is less but there is no compromise in teaching, learning and the facilities,” the principal said.

The college now spends around Rs 70 lakh each year on scholarships for needy students.

The sole purpose of building the rural campus is to attract students from the interiors of West Bengal.

“We believe in educating people, especially the first generation learners, those who are coming to study from a family for the first time,” he said.

The college alumni association plans to start a new chapter in South Africa, which would take its number of international chapters to ten. “The purpose of having so many chapters is to spread the Xaverian spirit,” he said.

Besides, there were also plans to set up a community radio in collaboration with the alumni association.